The following discussion of the background art is intended to facilitate an understanding of the present invention only. The discussion is not an acknowledgement or admission that any of the material referred to is or was part of the common general knowledge as at the priority date of the application.
Industrial enterprises, scientific associations, and government organisations need to collect marine data relating to a variety of tasks and undertakings. Such data is essential to the successful conduct of operations in the digital oilfield, coastal security, and safety or at-risk environmental areas. This data often needs to be collected from remote, isolated offshore areas. The collector of this data typically requires the use of subsea imaging or other data collecting equipment that is not itself self-sufficient and requires an entire ship based support crew in order to deploy, power, and run the equipment. This becomes a very expensive exercise, especially when the subsea equipment needs to be deployed for extended periods of time. Additionally, in particular conditions the deployment of such equipment in offshore locations becomes dangerous. It is against this background that the present invention has been developed.
The present invention seeks to overcome, or at least ameliorate, one or more of the deficiencies of the prior art mentioned above, or to provide the consumer with a useful or commercial choice.
Each document, reference, patent application or patent cited in this text is expressly incorporated herein in their entirety by reference, which means that it should be read and considered by the reader as part of this text. That the document, reference, patent application or patent cited in this text is not repeated in this text is merely for reasons of conciseness.